Maeping Tak

... starting to get lot's and lot's of random stuff to bring home.

We were back at the guesthouse at about 1730 and at about 1815 the mini bus rolled up to take us to the bus stop. Everyone inside the mini van looked just as sullen as us about making the journey overnight in what was sure to be a bust struggling to stay on the road driven by a 12 year old wearing a back to front.
Tak, Thailand bass_ke

... for 700 baht. The phone cost about 1000 baht. Let’s go you prick!

8:40 am – I meet up with the bus driver, who has my phone. He wants 100 baht for it, which is only $3.00 but I’m beginning to see red. I wanna wipe my ass with the money first, but instead I put it in his hand and grip it with a firm handshake. We both smile fake smiles.

9:00 am- my taxi friend and I get stuck in morning traffic on the way back to the hotel. He teaches me some ...

... I might be calling Mae Sariang home, four hours south of where I lived last time in Mae Hong Son. There I will most probably end up living for at least the first three months working on programme management and funding for the Karen Woman’s Organisation, which is funded by the TBBC. If all goes well it could turn into a paid position. But in the mean time I first need to go to the small town and meet the director and make sure we want to work together. If so, the ...

... its relaxing vibe and chilled our excursions and that is exactly what we needed. When we got to the bus station we discovered that the next bus headed to Pai was leaving at 8pm and it was 11:30 am. Carrying all of our worldly belongings in the heat for 8 hours was less than an exciting prospect so Collin looked at the map and found Tak, a city located in the middle of Bangkok and Pai. The bus to Tak left at 4 o'clock and we were more than willing to slum it out in the bus terminal ...

... the dark side of the tourism industry in Chiang Mai, Pat (my partner in crime for this venture) wanted to create a project that symbolised the opposite of this. So far, I think we're on the right track. My apologies beforehand, for in this blog there are no fancy trying to impress writing styles, just me and my thoughts as they enter my head, the experiences and stories I pass during my journey through sustainable travel!

... have taken on the motto: what you don't see won't hurt you! Actually - we have been very luck so far - absolutely no stomach problems!! The next day, we drove out west of Tak to a small town called Mae Sop. This was a very Thai town with incredibly tiny narrow roads full of people and dogs and bikes and carts and cows and..... you get the picture. There really wasn't much for us here to do, so we continued a bit ...

We took the night bus from Bangkok to Sukhothai. It was a seven hour bus ride so we arrived in Sukhothai at about 5 am. We eventually submitted to the persistent tuk-tuk drivers and took one to New Sukhothai. We found a place once we got there and it was dirt cheap, I'm talking 120 baht (about $4 CAD). We took the songthaew (pick-up truck converted to a ...

So November 5th was the night of the full moon of the twelfth lunar month here in Thailand. That means its Loy Krathong, a festival which honors the spirits of the water and marks the end of the rainy season. It's celebrated all over Thailand, but with special fanfare in Sukhothai, the ancient capitol of Thailand. I took a six hour bus ride north from Bangkok to Sukhothai on the 4th, just in time for the festivities. I stayed in "new" Sukhothai. which is ...

... camp. Some people have told me that there are specific sections of the camp for each religion, but I don't see that. It seems completely mixed. On a Sunday morning, we walk to the oldest section of Mae La, where a pastor called Dr. Simon has the largest Baptist church in the camp. The choir is beautiful, but the pastor is nowhere to be found. A girl with excellent English takes us up the hill to a smaller chapel, where a church has been set up specifically ...

... that it could be used for non-civilian purposes. It's just been allowed back on the air, under the provision that it only be used for educational purposes. We walk on, to the center of camp, where the Karen Women's Organization has an office, which consists of a storage space for UN donated goods, and several looms where women produce colorful fabrics, one of the few ways refugees can legitimately earn money. Let Let Win is the woman in charge, a badass grandma who used to ...